


Something Borrowed, Something Blue

by Kayim



Category: Fairy Tales and Related Fandoms, Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-07
Updated: 2012-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-29 03:22:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/315261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayim/pseuds/Kayim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma finally gets to do some proper sheriffing in Storybrooke.  But as always, things are not quite what they seem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Borrowed, Something Blue

**Author's Note:**

> In terms of continuity, this fic takes place before episode 1x07 - so Graham is alive and well – but after 1x04 when she accepts the position as deputy sheriff. You can also assume that Emma has no idea that her boss is sleeping with the Mayor...
> 
> Major thanks to Siluria, Frayen and Sam who helped me wrangle this into something that made sense!

_There was a man who had fine houses, both in town and country, a deal of silver and gold plate, embroidered furniture, and coaches gilded all over with gold. But this man was so unlucky as to have a blue beard, which made him so frightfully ugly that all the women and girls ran away from him._ \- La Barbe bleue by Charles Perrault

~*~

Emma sat in front of the computer in the Sheriff’s office and tapped her fingers impatiently on the edge of the keyboard. She wasn’t in any particular hurry – this was Storybrooke after all, not Boston – but she was used to an internet connection that worked at speeds faster than “snail’s pace”.

Of course, since there wasn’t any kind of public internet connection in town, she had no other choice than to use the antiquated machine that Graham apparently only ever used to check weather reports. Clearly running a Lexis-Nexis search was way out of the computer’s comfort zone.

“Deputy Swan?”

Emma spun around in her chair to see a young woman standing in the office. She was slim with long dark hair and an expression that made her look a lot younger than she probably was. She stood tense, her whole body rigid – an expression that Emma had seen before when she tracked down bail jumpers. The woman was either about to run or attack.

Flicking off the computer monitor, Emma stood up and took a few steps towards the woman, her hand dropping automatically to the deputy’s badge she wore on her belt. “Can I help you?”

The woman’s posture relaxed almost instantly, as though the stress had just drained out of her. “Oh thank goodness,” she said, starting to sway on her feet.

Emma rushed forward and caught the woman’s arm before she fell to the floor. She guided her over to the chair, sitting her down and crouching in front of her. “Are you okay?” she asked. “Do you need a drink of water or something?”

The woman shook her head. “I need your help,” she said, her voice shaky. “I think my husband’s going to kill me.”

~*~

Emma had been in Storybrooke for long enough to know that while it wasn’t quite the Happily Ever After Henry’s book promised it would be, it also wasn’t nearly as bad as many of the previous places she’d lived. She’d joked with Graham when she first accepted the job that business probably wasn’t good enough to warrant two cops in town, but even then she’d not realized just how quiet it could be.

In the three weeks she’d worn the badge, she’d hauled Leroy in twice for being drunk and disorderly, climbed a tree in the middle of the woods to rescue Mrs. Sullivan’s cat, warned a couple of boys from Henry’s class not to skateboard on the sidewalk, and issued a parking ticket to Ruby. Not exactly the stuff of crime novels.

But Joanna’s revelation about her husband was the first time she felt like an actual deputy. Not that she believed for a moment that the man was actually trying to kill his wife, but there was at least something going on for her to get her teeth into.

Emma handed Joanna a tissue, which the woman accepted with a weak smile. “Thank you.”

“So what makes you think your husband is trying to kill you?” Emma pushed straight to the point. She’d never been one for platitudes and empty gestures. If the woman was this upset about something her husband had done, then Emma needed to know about it so she could fix it.

Joanna sniffed into the tissue. “Well, I don’t know for sure,” she admitted as she studied the floor by her feet. “But he’s definitely been seeing another woman. And you know what happened to his other wives.”

“Wait. Other wives?”

Joanna nodded. “My husband was married before I met him. Five times.”

“Five times?” Emma worried that she was starting to sound like a parrot.

“They all died.”

Emma tried to tell herself that it could just be coincidence, a string of unenviable bad luck, that maybe Joanna had jumped to conclusions, but honestly? Five ex-wives? All dead? Not so much with the coincidence. She liked to think that Graham might have mentioned something like that to her.

With a quick run through of possibilities, Emma decided on a course of action. She could, of course, have waited for Graham to come back, but there was little enough for her to do already. “Okay, first, you are going to stay right here, you understand? If you need some food or company, head over to Granny’s. Do not, under any circumstances, go back home.”

Joanna nodded and sniffed.

“Secondly, I’m going over to your house to talk to your husband. If I’m not satisfied with what he tells me, I’ll have a chat with the Sheriff and we’ll sort something out between us.” That wasn't exactly what she was planning to do, but Emma didn't think that Joanna really needed to know the full plan.

She had no idea what she was actually expecting Joanna’s husband to say – sadly a confession about murdering five wives was probably out of the question – but she felt obliged to go and talk to him first. She’d not been a successful bail-bondsperson by jumping to conclusions and rushing in headfirst without all the facts. This was no different.

~*~

Out towards the very edges of Storybrooke, the house that Joanna shared with her husband was one of the largest in town. With its dark exterior and heavy columns, it looked as though it had been transplanted from a gothic novel. The small, traitorous part of Emma’s mind that had been far too influenced by Henry wondered if Joanna’s husband was actually Dracula or some other dark mysterious story character.

As she knocked on the door, hearing the sound echo inside the house, she shook the thought away. This wasn’t a fairytale character from Henry’s book. It was just a man allegedly cheating on his wife who may or may not be planning on killing her. Nothing like a fairytale.

The door opened and Joanna’s husband stood in front of her. Taller than she had expected, with a perfectly trimmed goatee and small round glasses that seemed to perch uncomfortably on his face, he loomed in the doorway. Although broad enough across the shoulders to be a football player, the combination of glasses and blue silk cravat made him look more like a college professor. Whatever Emma had been expecting, this wasn't it.

“Mr. Montmorency?”

He smiled and held a hand out to her. “Miss Swan. I’m so pleased to make your acquaintance. I’ve heard so much about you from Mayor Mills. And please, call me Giles.”

Something in his words and the way he looked at Emma made her shiver, despite the warmth of the day. She liked to pride herself on her character judgments, and her initial judgment of Joanna’s husband was not a positive one.

She brushed her feelings away, focusing on the current situation. She shook his hand politely, tugging away when he held on just a little too long, and forced herself to smile. “I’m just trying to get to know some of the more influential locals, and I thought I’d come and introduce myself.”

“How lovely." He stepped aside and gestured for her to come inside, although his size meant that she had to press herself disturbingly close to him to get into the hallway. “Can I get you a drink or something. I have some fresh apple cider that the Mayor brought around yesterday.”

Emma struggled to hold back a shudder. Cider wasn’t her favorite drink under normal circumstances – she preferred a nice cold Budweiser any day – but the idea of imbibing any of the apples from that witch’s garden was almost too much to bear. “Just some water, thank you.”

“Of course. Please, take a seat and I’ll be right back.”

Perching on the edge of the large leather sofa, Emma looked around the room. Like the exterior, the decor reminded her of something old-fashioned, almost Victorian in its elegance. The walls were a deep blue color, but there was still plenty of light coming in through the large window that dominated one wall. Beside the sofa, there were two armchairs, traditional high-backed ones that resembled thrones. One wall was lined with bookshelves, filled from top to bottom with books that, when Emma walked over to check, were alphabetized in perfect order. Not a single thing in the house would have looked out of place in a Jane Austen novel, including its occupant.

“So how are you settling into Storybrooke, Miss Swan?”

Emma spun around to see Giles standing in the doorway, a silver tray in one hand. It wasn’t often that someone managed to sneak up on her like that and it made her even more uncomfortable than she already had been.

Giles walked over to the occasional table by the sofa and placed two coasters down, neatly putting a glass and a pitcher of water on them. Emma noticed that even the silver tray had a cloth on it and mentally categorized him as a bit of a neat freak.

“I do hope the Sheriff isn’t working you too hard,” he said, winking at her as he sat on the sofa. “The Mayor says you’ve been working very, very closely together.”

 _I just bet she has_ , Emma thought to herself. The insinuation that there was anything other than work between her and Graham was... well, laughable. But she knew what Giles was up to - she’d seen this type of behavior before. He was trying to intimidate her with crude jokes and double entendres, in order to put her off-balance or hide something important. It had never worked in the past, and it certainly wasn’t going to work this time.

She smiled sweetly and took a large drink from the glass. “Do you mind if I use your bathroom?” she asked, placing the drink back on the coaster. She wondered briefly what he would do if she had put the glass straight on the table, leaving a water ring. Would he have rushed over with a napkin to wipe it away?

“Of course not. It’s just up the stairs and on your right. The doors should all be open up there, so you’ll know if it’s the right room.”

As Emma climbed the stairs, she studied the framed pictures that hung on the wall. Each one was a wedding picture, six in all, with Joanna in the final one. Giles looked the same age in each of them, and the styles of dress appeared almost the same. Not much time passed between marriages then.

“My ex-wives. Beautiful, aren’t they?”

For the second time, Giles had managed to sneak up on her. Emma snatched her finger away from the edge of the last frame, ashamed of having been caught snooping. Deciding to just ask the question she wanted an answer to, rather than continuing to pretend at chit-chat, she gestured towards the pictures.

“What happened to them?”

Giles smiled widely, showing no guilt or sorrow at all. “They all left me, I’m afraid. You see, I have some issues with staying completely monogamous, and while each of them believed they could be the one to make me settle down, they were all sadly mistaken.”

It certainly seemed believable. Giles was obviously well off, and not completely unattractive, Emma realized. There were probably plenty of women who would have tried to “tame” a man like him.

"There's a ridiculous rumor that I've had them killed."

Emma almost choked. She certainly hadn’t expected him to bring that up himself. "Pardon?"

Another smile, this one accompanied by a chuckle that sent shivers down Emma's spine. "Apparently I'm some sort of homicidal maniac or something."

"And are you?" The question popped out before Emma could swallow it back down.

Giles laughed again, leaning forward conspiratorially. “I think my dear Joanna may be next to leave me,” he added, one hand reaching out to stroke Emma’s arm. “She doesn’t seem very happy with me anymore.”

Emma grabbed the wandering hand, squeezing tightly enough that her feelings regarding the unwarranted touching couldn’t be misunderstood, and moved it away from her arm.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Emma said, keeping her voice steady. “I really do need to use your bathroom.”

“But of course.” Giles stepped back down the stairs, keeping his eyes firmly on Emma. She knew that the moment she turned around to finish climbing the stairs, he would be staring unashamedly at her backside. The thought of him watching her like that made her stomach reel.

She had no choice, though, so she took a deep breath and walked as calmly as she could until she reached the top of the stairs and rounded the corner onto the landing. Thanks to the design of the house, she knew she was out of sight, and she took a moment to look around. She estimated that the landing ran the entire width of the house, with rooms on either side. As Giles had mentioned, each of the doors stood slightly ajar.

Except one.

At the end of the landing was a single door that was closed. Smaller than the others, it was made of a dark wood, which made it stand out in contrast to the others which were painted glossy white. Emma glanced quickly behind her before heading directly to the door.

 _It’s not breaking and entering if you’re already in the property_ , she tried to convince herself as her lock picks caught on the mechanism. The lock was sturdier than it looked and she fought with it for a couple of seconds before she heard the reassuring _click_. Slowly turning the handle, she eased the door open, hoping that it wasn’t as old and squeaky as it looked.

There was a soft groan from the wood as it opened, but it was quiet enough that she didn’t think Giles had heard anything. She slid her lock picks back into the inside pocket of her jacket and pulled out a small flashlight, taking one more quick glance around her.

The room was dark, with no obvious sources of light, the beam of her small flashlight providing the only visibility. It looked like a small storage room, with boxes stacked up against each wall. One of the boxes closest to the door had a name written on it in black marker. Emma had no doubt that _Anna_ was one of the previous Mrs. Montmorencys.

Gripping the flashlight between her teeth, Emma lifted open the lid of the box. Inside were dozens and dozens of photographs of a woman, presumably Anna, in various poses. All fully dressed, Emma noted with some relief. Other than some extremely bad photographic skills, there was nothing that concerned her too much. It wasn’t something that a man would want his current wife to discover, especially if Emma’s guess about the similar contents of the others boxes was correct, but it also wasn’t anything that indicated the subjects had been treated badly.

To reassure herself, Emma opened a couple of other boxes, quickly flicking through the contents to ensure nothing untoward. While she felt a little uncomfortable nosing through personal possessions like this, she reminded herself that she was a deputy now, and her primary concern should be the welfare of the townspeople. If Emma could overcome her discomfort now and be able to go back to tell Joanna in good conscience that her husband was not a mass murderer, it was all worth it.

Satisfied that there was nothing in the room that indicated Giles Montmorency was anything other than a slightly obsessive serial adulterer, she backed out of the door, pulling it closed behind her.

Painfully aware of the amount of time she had spent snooping ( _investigating_ , she corrected herself), she tip-toed back along the landing and into the bathroom. A quick flush of the toilet for cover and she headed downstairs.

“Everything okay?” Giles asked as she entered the room. He was standing at the ornate fireplace, a glass tumbler in one hand and a small hardback book in the other, looking every inch as though he belonged in this timeless room.

Emma nodded. “Thank you for your hospitality, but I really must be going,” she said, taking one last look around the room. She wasn’t sure what she was still expecting to find, but there was _something_ that she couldn’t help feeling she’d missed.

She made a mental note to ask Henry who he thought Mr. Montmorency was in his book. Some Duke or Earl, she suspected. The man was a creep, for sure, and had probably cheated on poor Joanna more times than Emma had eaten microwave meals for one, but there was nothing here to indicate that he was actually a killer. Which didn’t mean he wasn’t, of course. Just that he was one of the clever ones. A little bit of research on the previous wives wouldn’t go amiss. And maybe a background check on Giles himself.

Giles escorted her to the front door and held out his hand again. “It really was a pleasure, Miss Swan.”

She didn’t shake his hand.

~*~

Listening for the sound of the car pulling out of his driveway, Giles opened the door to the storage room. He knew the deputy had been in there, of course, he’d have been disappointed if she hadn’t, but he wanted to be sure that she hadn’t dug too deeply.

He switched on the light, the bare bulb casting an eerie glow over the room. She’d rummaged in a couple of the boxes and would have found the photos, but she couldn’t have looked in all of them. He lifted the top two boxes from the pile and put them to one side, opening the bottom one. The good photos, the ones taken over the last couple of weeks, were untouched by her. He picked one up, a double shot of both Anna and Miranda, and took a moment to appreciate his handiwork.

Placing the photo back in the box, he sealed it and pushed it away from the wall. Stepping behind it, he ran his fingers over the seemingly smooth plaster, finding the minute series of notches that would never be noticed unless someone was specifically searching them out.

He pressed his fingernails into the indentations, triggering the catch that held the panel closed. It slid back soundlessly, the light from the room illuminating the secret room.

With a smile, he stepped inside, careful not to disturb the carefully hung bodies on the wall. Five beautiful wives, each one as greedy and desperate as the last. He reached out a hand to caress Anna’s cold, unmoving cheek, watching as her lifeless body swung gently on the hook.

 _It was about time_ , he decided as he looked around the room. Tomorrow morning, a new hook would be hung, and he could start looking for wife number seven. He wondered briefly if the new deputy would be at all interested...


End file.
